How to Install Discord on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends. Users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers.” Discord is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux Distros.

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the Discord client on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using three different methods with the command line terminal.

Update Ubuntu

First, update your system to ensure all existing packages are up to date to avoid any conflicts during the installation.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install Discord – Snapcraft Method

The first option is to install Discord as a snap. The Snapcraft package manager should be installed on your Ubuntu desktop unless you have removed it previously and is often the easiest solution to install packages quickly on Ubuntu systems.

For users that removed snapd, re-run the following command:

sudo apt install snapd -y

Once installed, you will need to restart your system, or else the icons may not appear; if you skip a repeat and notice any issues, reboot.

reboot

Snap installed? Skip the following few lines and proceed straight to the installation with Snap

Next, some packages come in classic, so you need to create a symlink to enable classic snap support, so it is best to run this command for the best snap compatibility.

sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Install the core files to avoid conflicting issues.

sudo snap install core

Next, enter the following snap command to install.

sudo snap install discord

Install Discord – APT Method .deb package

The second option is to install Discord with the Debian package using the wget command. The following command should always download the latest version available.

wget "https://discord.com/api/download?platform=linux&format=deb" -O discord.deb

Once you have completed the download, proceed to install the .deb package.

sudo apt install ./discord.deb -y

Install Discord – Flatpak Method

The third option is to use the Flatpak package manager, which is not installed on Ubuntu distributions, given Snap, which is Flatpak’s rival, is owned by Canonical and Ubuntu. However, Flatpak is still available to install from Ubuntu’s default repository.

The extra benefit of using Flatpak installations is that you will always have the most up-to-date version compared to Ubuntu which focuses on stability with older versions that only see updates for security issues or serve bugs.

First, install the Flatpak manager; this can be skipped if you already have it installed.

sudo apt install flatpak -y

Next, you need to enable Flatpack using the following command in your terminal:

sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Ideally, you should reboot at this stage; if you skip this and notice icons not appearing, the reboot will generate the paths required for the future.

reboot

Now begin the installation using the following flatpak command.

flatpak install flathub com.discordapp.Discord

How to the Launch Discord Client

With the installation complete from one of the installation methods, you can run Discord immediately from your terminal as follows.

First, while you are in your terminal, you can use the following command.

discord

Flatpak users will need to launch using the command below from a terminal instance.

flatpak run com.discordapp.Discord

Lastly, Snapcraft users can use the following command.

sudo snap run discord

However, this isn’t practical, and you would use the following path on your desktop.

Activities > Show Applications > Discord.

Alternatively, if you cannot find it, use the search function in the Show Applications menu if you have many applications installed.

Example:

Now open Discord, and you will come to the login page, either create an account or use an existing account, and that’s it; you have successfully installed Discord on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish.

How to Update/Upgrade Discord

Updates should appear in notifications, but if these fail to show sometimes, it is recommended to check using the terminal regardless use one of the following commands to check for updates.

APT Method

For in-client updates, this will be handled automatically by Discord. Binary upgrades, you will be prompted to do this by your Discord client, re-follow the APT manual method, and you will be upgraded.

Flatpak Method

flatpak update

Snap Method

sudo snap refresh

How to Remove (Uninstall) Discord

Use one of the following commands to suit the original installation method for users who no longer require the application.

APT Method

sudo apt autoremove discord --purge -y

Flatpak Remove Method

flatpak remove  --delete-data com.discordapp.Discord -y

Next, run the following command for any leftover clean-ups required, similar to the autoremove command described for the apt remove example command.

flatpak remove --unused

Snapcraft Remove Method

sudo snap remove --purge discord

Comments and Conclusion

The tutorial has outlined how to install Discord using snapcraft, flatpak, or the download .deb package on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish. A bonus is if you want multiple discord clients, installing these various methods means you can technically have more clients running at once since they exist in separate containers.

Discord is the number 1 gaming platform for online communities for the years to come as it cemented itself by working with major gaming companies and e-sports. However, TeamSpeak self-hosted is making a comeback. The future will determine if Discord can keep its dominance, given these days’ privacy concerns.